Product crack | Health Assurance

It is a defined benefit policy that pays a lump sum for a pre-defined medical condition. It consists of three defined benefit covers. The critical illness (CI) cover pays a lump sum in case you contract a pre-defined critical illness; the hospital cash cover pays you daily cash in case you are hospitalized; and the personal accident cover pays you cash in case of death or disability due to an accident. The policy allows you to choose these benefits individually or in a combination. Once the policy pays for the critical illness and personal accident benefits (except permanent partial disability), the cover terminates.

What do you get?

The CI benefit covers 20 critical illnesses, including cancer, first heart attack, stroke, paralysis, major organ transplant, kidney failure and end-stage liver or lung diseases. As is the norm with CI policies, the insured person can make a claim only if he survives for 30 days after diagnosis.

The hospital cash policy pays a daily allowance during hospitalization. In a year, this daily allowance is restricted up to 45 days.

The personal accident benefit gives you the sum assured in the event of death and a pre-defined sum that depends on the sum assured in case of permanent total disability or permanent partial disability. It does not cover total temporary disability, which most other stand-alone personal accident covers offer.

What we like?

This policy is renewable for life and offers you the flexibility to customize the benefits. Its CI benefit covers 20 ailments and that, too, for a sum insured of up to Rs.10 lakh. Usually, CI policies don’t offer such a high sum insured for so many ailments.

What we don’t like?

The hospital cash benefit is payable not during the days you are hospitalized but after hospitalization once you produce the proof that you were hospitalized. Currently, other hospital cash plans also work as reimbursement policies. So if you need cash during hospitalization as any hospital cash benefit would seem to suggest, these policies really don’t help much. The personal accident cover here does not cover temporary total disability, which is a part of a standard stand-alone personal accident cover.

Mint Money take

The product’s pricing is competitive. For instance, if you want a CI cover of Rs.5 lakh, hospital cash for Rs.2,000 and personal accident for Rs.10 lakh, the premium in this product would be around Rs.4,400 for a 35-year-old, whereas if taken individually these covers would cost around Rs.4,500. You should look at it to top up your existing health insurance product with a CI policy.